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> If thinking/understanding/reasoning/whatever can be fake, it should be testable I agree with everything else you said, but this is a point I disagree with.

> If thinking/understanding/reasoning/whatever can be fake, it should be testable I agree with everything else you said, but this is a point I disagree with. Just because something isn't testable, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Theoretically, the state of facts could be such that 1) human minds can think (as in, have consciousness and perform the process that is known to us as "human thinking") and 2) machines cannot think (as in, they don't have consciousness, but are literally just mechanisms that appear to provide same output as humans for a certain set of inputs). I don't think it's true, in fact, I don't think consciousness itself is anything more than a convenient illusion, but I still must point out that "what is real must be measurable" is not a valid argument. A more precise formulation might be "if thinking can be fake, the only way we can prove it is if it's testable - otherwise it doesn't make sense to discuss it".

famouswaffles 3y ago
Guess we'll just disagree. If it's not distinguishable then there's no difference period. Of course that won't stop people from making up differences. An argument stemming from "well humans could have this special sauce that machines can't have...just because", is not something to take seriously.
- tosh 3y ago
  If something is indistinguishable to something else it practically means the two things are substitable (?). It does not mean they are (or work) the same way.
  - yladiz 3y ago
    Yeah, so then it depends on what determines if the first is indistinguishable from the second. Is this a Blade Runner situation, or something different?
- bheadmaster 3y ago
  > If it's not distinguishable then there's no difference period. That's true only if you believe that the world only exists inside humans' minds. If you believe in objective reality, then things that are different but not distinguishable by humans can exist.

famouswaffles 3y ago

Guess we'll just disagree. If it's not distinguishable then there's no difference period. Of course that won't stop people from making up differences. An argument stemming from "well humans could have this special sauce that machines can't have...just because", is not something to take seriously.

tosh 3y ago
If something is indistinguishable to something else it practically means the two things are substitable (?). It does not mean they are (or work) the same way.
- yladiz 3y ago
  Yeah, so then it depends on what determines if the first is indistinguishable from the second. Is this a Blade Runner situation, or something different?
bheadmaster 3y ago
> If it's not distinguishable then there's no difference period. That's true only if you believe that the world only exists inside humans' minds. If you believe in objective reality, then things that are different but not distinguishable by humans can exist.